Information display screens around the school?

[PaulBM]

Has anybody had any experience, good or bad, of setting up an information display system around their school?

 

It looks like we're thinking of having a few screens at key locations around the school. Ideally updated by various members of staff from their PC's.

 

Any information on suppliers and different systems available would be most welcome. There are several systems around, few seem ideal.

 

Thanks.

[elsiegee40]

The cheapest way is probably to network a few "junk machines" from the pile in your shed/cupboard/office (delete as appropriate) - add a decent size flat screen monitor to each and run powerpoints on them...

 

The powerpoints could be centrally maintained in a shared admin area.

[ChrisH]

Search for digital signage there a few topics about it.

[FN-GM]

We have one in the reception its never used.

 

Z

[tech-man]

We now have 4 schools around school(more to come), they are always commented on from students and parents on the quality of the content. Content on the screens is key, if you dont put intresting, up to date information, they simply do not work.

 

Our solution use D|Sign from http://www.dsign.co.uk - great software & support.

 

Well worth a look. They have won awards for the project.

[FN-GM]

scrolling messages seem to hook people with these type of signs

[Edu-IT]

There's also ONELAN Net-Top-Box.

 

http://www.onelan.co.uk/product_ntb.html

[squirrel]

We have a small PC behind a plasma screen but we run a web page on it. Far better for content as you can add video, images, text whatever you want.

 

I feel PowerPoint is a bit limited for this type of project.

[maniac]

We have a one lan net-top-box, and I'd say there are better products out there. Sure it does what it says, but I find the interface confusing, and for the money it's quite restrictive really.

 

Having said that, once you've figured it out, it does work OK, just expensive for what it is IMO.

 

Once you've brought one thou, you can use items like these; http://www.cabletime.com/introduction_to_mediastar_evolution.asp to distribute the signal round your school over your IP network.

 

Mike.

[Edu-IT]

In what way do you find it restrictive?

[tech_guy]

We now have 4 schools around school(more to come), they are always commented on from students and parents on the quality of the content. Content on the screens is key, if you dont put intresting, up to date information, they simply do not work.

 

Our solution use D|Sign from http://www.dsign.co.uk - great software & support.

 

Well worth a look. They have won awards for the project.

 

Yup, we use this package too - we have various plasmas/lcds around the site and the software is pretty good. They will even design custom templates for you if you ask them nicely!

 

We can show everything we want: internet, sky tv, dvds, powerpoints, pictures, text, the lot.

 

We're pleased with it.

[maniac]

In what way do you find it restrictive?

 

I think the main thing we had problems with was getting it to display videos, it only liked certain formats, which was a pain! Then I expect other simelar systems would be the same on this, there's only so many video formats you can support I suppose, it just created a lot more work for us!

 

I find the pallete of colours you can use for text and backgrounds is limiting, and it makes it hard to match colours of backgrounds on things like the news ticker with that of the main background.

 

Building even the simplest page layout requires a reasonable level of technical skill to understand what all the different componants are and how to use them, Even I find it confusing as do my fellow workers. We were hoping that we would be able to train other admin staff to do this, to take some of the workload of us. After all creating a fancy presentation for the canteen isn't really what our job role is. Unfortunitely due to the complexity of the system, it's unlikely we can do this.

 

I find it tricky to use with simple functions like changing the channel on the digital card hidden away in non-intuative places.

 

I mean it is a reasonably good product I suppose, just I think it could be done better, and I have had demos of other products that certainly seemed easier to use. Also bear in mind how much it costs, and the fact it's really a very basic PC in what I consider to be a cheap looking system case. I was disappointed when we received it, so I suppose I am focussing on the negative points.

 

The above is my opinion only, others may well have a better experience so I'd recommend getting a demo of one if you're interested, or better still if they're at Bett, pop along and see them!

 

Mike.

[tech-man]

The beauty of D|Sign is that it is designed to be used by administrative office staff i.e. non techies! Which in my view is fantastic because it is a another job I don't have to do!

 

We looked at other products, we found some issues with the ease of use - some based on a linux platform.

 

I can't really speak highly enough of D|Sign - and before you ask I am not being paid to say this!

[Heebeejeebee]

There's also ONELAN Net-Top-Box.

 

http://www.onelan.co.uk/product_ntb.html

 

We've just had two of these fitted today - well, one Net-Top box and two monitors using CAT5 to get the signal. works well and easy to schedule events etc.

 

We used USL to install them.

 

HBJB

[Ric_]

I wrote an article comparing the three systems that I looked... searching will turn it up.

 

I chose a Navaho MediaCat system from Oliis Solutions in the end and I think it's great. Oliis and Navaho have kindly loaned us one for the stand at Bett if anyone wants to see it in action.

[Edu-IT]

There's also ONELAN Net-Top-Box.

 

http://www.onelan.co.uk/product_ntb.html

 

We've just had two of these fitted today - well, one Net-Top box and two monitors using CAT5 to get the signal. works well and easy to schedule events etc.

 

We used USL to install them.

 

HBJB

Have you started to create layouts for yourself and input information or have you just had a demonstration from the installer?

[edie209]

We have just had a OneLan system installed and I was wondering if the people using this system have pushed it very far?

 

I'm just trying to get to grips with it. I would love to know if anyone has managed to get different tv programs (for instance) on different screens around the school or is it just a casae of having the same on all screens. Is there any more documentation that the little booklet that comes with it?

 

Also do you know of any free layouts available for download just so I can try out different ones to see what really works best before I customise one of the stock ones.

[tech_guy]

The beauty of D|Sign is that it is designed to be used by administrative office staff i.e. non techies! Which in my view is fantastic because it is a another job I don't have to do!

 

We looked at other products, we found some issues with the ease of use - some based on a linux platform.

 

I can't really speak highly enough of D|Sign - and before you ask I am not being paid to say this!

 

That's why we went for them too - the office staff now do all the content creation and manage it all so I'm very happy!

[Heebeejeebee]

Have you started to create layouts for yourself and input information or have you just had a demonstration from the installer?

 

I've created some of my own templates.. They're reletivly easy to setup. Training comes later in the week.

 

For some reason half the news feeds were blocked by the filter but that was easily sorted.

 

HBJB

[CAM]

Sorry to raise the dead but I have a relevant query to signage.

 

I have been asked to get a system set up but we don't have the time or budget for a digital signage solution (especially since I am unavailable over the holidays). Currently we use a Powerpoint presentation run locally on the machines attached to a display and the Headteacher wants 4 screens running at once with the same display.

 

What's the best way to set up a central point of storage for the display and show it on all 4 screens accross the school site? I was thinking of storing 1 Powerpoint file on the network and having 4 machines reading from that but it looks to be more work then using a USB stick. And possible performance issues over the network and display itself.

 

Thanks.

[TechMonkey]

Depends on wether you just want a hardware way of running powerpoint or a system. You could get xibo running on an old machine, which is a free open source signage system, & run the powerpoint from there. Each machine woudl then run the client adn all get it from the server.

[dhicks]

What's the best way to set up a central point of storage for the display and show it on all 4 screens accross the school site?

 

Use web pages. Put a meta-refresh tag in the header of each web page that loads the next page in 60 seconds or whatever time you want. The last page in the list simply loads the first one again. You can update information by simply updating web pages, the slideshow will just keep running on the client machines. Use a Linux distribution that simply boots straight to a Kiosk-mode copy of Firefox on clients. No need to spend money on anything.

 

--

David Hicks

[steveg]

Why not have a central location for the powerpoint file on the server, and a simple batch file to copy this to each pc. You can run software on the pc's so they automatically play the lastest powerpoint file.

 

It might also be worth having a look at xibo, i've only dabbled with it, but it looks realy good and should be a bit more powerful than powerpoint for this soft of thing.

 

Steve

[CAM]

I have taken a look at Xibo and it looks very interesting and worth a test if it isn't too complicated. Anyone have experience with it?

 

Also I considered the web page with auto-refresh but we have multiple pages that often have movies running on them from Photo Story.

 

EDIT - Ooops, didn't read dhicks' post properly. How can I make it change to the next page? May have to tinker with this over the hols.

Edited July 15, 2009 by CAM

[TwoZeroAlpha]

@CAM - the following code in the head segment of each page should do, just change the target and timeout

 

I built a version like this using html and frames for our screen, then found xibo. I haven't looked back since.

 

I can't recommend xibo highly enough, a doddle to install and very user-friendly to operate. If the admin staff weren't quite as overworked I'd chuck it over to them. As it is I've created a couple of student accounts on the server and get talented students to knock up layouts.